


always waiting, feeling nothing

by invertedrainbow



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1393276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invertedrainbow/pseuds/invertedrainbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Joel uses “Caboose” as an excuse to flirt with Burnie, and Burnie is flirting back as “Church”, until Joel realizes that maybe it’s not Church he’s flirting with anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	always waiting, feeling nothing

It becomes more of a habit when they realized how often it happened.

If anything, Joel dislikes the fact that he, as weird (or inevitable) as it may seem, remotely likes Burnie. The guy couldn’t handle emotional attachment in the first place, thus his marital status, so flirting with Burnie is safe. Going out of his way to actually find someone who he could flirt with is too much of a pain, and given the fact that he hates people, Burnie seems like the most perfect choice. They go years back, and the history they need is right there. Burnie is single, available, still interesting, and still alive even after Joel’s countless death threats. He couldn’t possibly fuck this up, could he?

It means absolutely nothing according to him, the words acrid with lies, promises of forever and never, and it seems like Burnie doesn’t give a flying fuck at all. He would smile in cue, letting the words roll out of that pretty little mouth with ease, and Joel thinks, maybe this could work.

Keyword: maybe.

Scenario 1.

Miles tells them that they need to record new lines for the additional scenes he wrote, and Joel merely shrugs when Burnie almost rage quits on Miles. Claims he’s busy and all that. He mentions something about flying to Boston for PAX, grabbing Gavin along. Again. Joel almost pouts at that, _almost_ , but thinks that it’s stupid. So he just shrugs. As always.

On sound check, Miles leaves them for a few minutes to grab the script, and Joel is really getting bored, so he sits in a corner and whines.

“Chuuuuuuuuuuurch.”

“Joel, I swear to god—“

“Who’s Joel, Church?”

He could see how Burnie’s getting angrier by the second, and to say that he loves angry Burnie is an understatement. So he pushes the right buttons for this to work to his advantage. As always.

“Church, can you tell me about the birds and the bees again?”

“Caboose,” Burnie huffs out finally, and Joel knows he won. “You are a fucking idiot and I hate breathing the same air you breathe.”

“But Church,” Joel slowly stands up and he towers over Burnie easily enough, his hand ghosting around Burnie’s neck, down to his chest. “I really like the story of the birds and the bees.”

For a quick second, Burnie looks scared at what Joel could make him do, and Joel found that so appealing that he just lunges for it, pressing Burnie against that padded wall that creates wonderful acoustic. Burnie’s hands find their way on Joel’s waist, pulling him closer, as if the space between them isn’t non-existent enough.

It always reminded him of magnets; opposite poles so attracted to each other than they leave no space, no room to breathe, just nothing, wanting to be closer. Cliché, Joel curses. Cliché and stupid and perfect.

Before it rolls on further, though, Burnie pushes him away and points at the stairs, where Miles is talking to Matt as they climb up. Joel smiles coyly at Burnie with that all-knowing stare and Burnie just ignores him. Whatever Joel started, it turns into a game, and goddamn doesn’t Joel intend to win.

Scenario 2.

It doesn’t take long for Burnie to come back to Austin, and the first thing the asshole does is barge into his apartment and wake him up from a death-inducing Friday night out with Adam Ellis, which means he already drowned his brain in beer. What he screams at Joel, however, is a big leap.

“Caboose, it’s one in the afternoon. We already ran drills four fucking times and you’re still sleeping?”

So that’s how he wants to play it, then? It’s sort of sweet.

“Five more minutes,” Joel groans, because his head is splitting into two and no amount of words can describe how painful it is. He is conflicted, really, on how to react on this. For one, he loves that Burnie goes straight to his apartment after his flight from Boston. But also, he hates Burnie for  _screaming_  and  _making noise_  which isn’t helping in his mental state of mind. “Don’t be mean, Church.”

But Burnie is joining him in the bed, decent enough to remove his shoes. Burnie’s arms are wrapped around his waist and he is breathing in, and Joel asks, “Missed me all that much?”

“I did leave,” He says sadly, something Joel is wary of. That shouldn’t exist. “I left you with _Tucker_ , of all the people.”

“It’s okay, Church,” Joel smiles, because the game is still on and he could still win this. “You’re back.” Burnie turns around to face him and presses his lips on his collarbones, up to his neck, to his ear, to his cheek, then finally to his lips. “That’s all that matters.”

When Burnie gives him that stupid smile, he almost drops the whole game, though. Because whatever that smile consists of, it does something in Joel’s system and for once, he can’t bear not staring at Burnie.

Oh  _no_.

Scenario 3.

Joel stays away from Burnie for a long while after that, because what they’re bordering on is dangerous, and he does this with Burnie because he knows it’s safe. Now he feels threatened, weak; Burnie is exploiting his weakness (whatever it is) and he can’t do anything to stop it.

He knows Burnie is well aware of the fact, and he is keeping his distance too, so Joel figures that _maybe_  he can live like this for 40 years more.

Until Burnie comes over to his apartment for drinks, and once Joel sees that bottle of tequila, he already knows how fucked up this is gonna be.

“Tell me the truth,” Burnie says when he passes over the shot, and Joel could feel his insides burning. Tequila has always been a hard fucker to down in general, and Joel knows he could have at least learned from the numerous times he got drunk to the point of almost-arrest, but Burnie is passing tequila shots like there’s no tomorrow, almost like his motive behind it is to make Joel ‘fess up on something—… Oh.

“Always,” Joel grins, and he laughs because it’s total bat-shit and he lies about everything. Burnie says nothing about it, anyway.

“Are you in love with Church?”

Joel stops in the middle of his shot to look at Burnie’s earnest eyes, and he laughs, somewhat. It’s nervous and his stomach is starting to flare up because of the damn liquor so he pushes it away. He pauses for a second, lets the question burn in his mind like the tequila did to his throat, and he says, “What?”

“Joel, are you in love with Church?”

“What the  _fuck_  are you talking ab—Are you high? Burnie, drugs are bad. Very bad. They make you woozy like this,” and to reiterate his point, he almost slumps on Burnie, but Burnie braces him back on his seat. He laughs throughout the exchange, but when he sees how Burnie is not laughing and not looking at him and definitely  _not happy_ , he stops. “What the hell is this all about?”

“The whole roleplaying thing,” Burnie says. “It bothers me.”

“Then we stop,” Joel shrugs, even though his brain is telling him no, because without Caboose, he can’t tell Church that he loves him, and without Caboose, he can’t kiss him senseless. “I go back to being full-time Joel.”

“No, I just—“

“Church, you don’t have to feel guilty about leaving me again,” Joel mumbles, a little too bitterly, because Church is leaving for good, and he doesn’t know if  _Caboose_  will handle this well. “I’m used to it.”

“You don’t understand, okay? You just,” Burnie groans with his fingers through his dangerously curly locks. “You think this is  _easy_?”

“I’m not your home, Church,” Joel grins, but it feels forced, with the way his jaw is slack and refusing to do any work on it, so it looks like a grimace, more than anything. “You don’t have to come back.”

“Caboose—“

“Church, it’s okay. Just go. I understand.”

But Burnie is suddenly kissing him with his eyes closed tight, like he is scared of how Joel would react to it when he says, “Caboose, I’m in love with Joel, not with you,” but Joel is smiling like an idiot when he kisses back, cupping Burnie’s cheeks as he draws him in closer, wanting nothing between them, not even air, because this is all he ever wanted all these years and Caboose and Church have been excuses all along. He feels completely sober now, with the way he knows that he’ll never forget,  _never_   _ever_  forget what Burnie said and with the way he is pressing light kisses on Burnie’s neck, wanting him to feel absolutely  _loved_  that he’d go crazy for it, for everything; his voice, his kisses, his touches, all Joel’s. Not Caboose’s.

“You started this thing,” Burnie says angrily at him, but Joel couldn’t bring himself to care now that he’s kissing  _Burnie_. “You could have at least ended it.”

“Didn’t want to,” Joel mumbles. “Couldn’t do it.”

“Why?”

“I was kissing you, not Church. Didn’t want to give it up even if it was the other way around in reality.”

Burnie laughs at that and says, “You’re a fucking idiot,” and Joel knows that. Very well.

“ _Your_  idiot,” Joel corrects, and Burnie only rolls his eyes when he dives in for more.


End file.
